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home loan

1 in 7 US Home Loans in Foreclosure or Delinquent

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A record one in seven U.S. mortgages were in foreclosure or at least one payment past due in the third quarter, according to fresh data signaling the recovery in the housing market will be tepid at best.
U.S. mortgage delinquency rates and the percentage of loans that entered the foreclosure process also [...]

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Many Americans in Home Loan Limbo

The number of Americans in mortgage limbo keeps growing.
These are the people who are far behind on their payments but are still waiting for their loan servicer to start the foreclosure process. LPS Applied Analytics, a research firm in Denver, reported that 3.4% of U.S. households with mortgages – or around 1.9 million – are [...]

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Counseling Helps Homeowners Avoid Foreclosure

Troubled homeowners who receive housing counseling are 60 percent more likely to avoid foreclosure and have their mortgage payments lowered significantly than borrowers who navigate the process themselves, according to a study to be released Wednesday.
The study, by the D.C.-based Urban Institute, examines the effectiveness of the government-funded National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling program, established in [...]

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No Mortgage Help for the Unemployed

There’s no help out there for people who are out of work and are just trying to hold on to their homes,” said John Schmitz, 62, of Thornwood, who has been unemployed from the world of finance for almost a year and has nearly exhausted his pension to keep current on his mortgage. “It’s so [...]

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Does FHA need a bailout?

WASHINGTON – The Federal Housing Administration, which propped up the collapsing housing market last year, acknowledged yesterday that it has drained its cash reserves to dangerously low levels, heightening concerns that it might need a taxpayer bailout.
The agency, which guarantees loans for many first-time homebuyers, could be hit if housing prices lose ground or if [...]

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46% of South Florida Homeowners Are Underwater

Nearly half of all owners of single-family homes in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale metropolitan area were underwater at the end of the third quarter, meaning their homes were valued at less than the mortgages owed against them.
Forty-six percent of South Florida homeowners, representing 387,157 homes, were underwater at the end of Sept. 30, compared to 47 [...]

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All those ’slime bag’ subprime borrowers and deadbeats who walked away

It usually goes like this: At a dinner or party or funeral (seriously), someone learns that I’m in real estate and walks over to chew the fat about the market. They go on and on about “all those ’slime bag’ subprime borrowers and deadbeats who walked away from their houses,” the resulting crash in the [...]

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California Attorney General Brown’s Letter to Banks & Loan Servicers

The foreclosure crisis continues to plague California homeowners who are trapped in mortgages with exploding monthly payments. While the economy is beginning to improve, homeowners desperate to save their homes have seen little relief. And analysts predict that foreclosures will continue to worsen, particularly as Pay Option ARMs begin to recast.
Economists estimate that about one [...]

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Loan Modification Numbers are Fantasy Land

Mortgage expert and one-time Fannie Mae Chief Credit Officer Edward Pinto says a claim made by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner that 500,000 homeowners have entered the Obama administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) is ridiculous.
In fact, he says, the program is rapidly becoming: “I will pretend to modify your loan if you pretend that you [...]

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Homeowners Continue to Walk Away in Droves

He stopped paying the mortgage, basically forcing the lender to take the condo off his hands through foreclosure.
“I was able to pay off all my credit cards,” said Duque, who is biding his time in the condo, waiting until they come and evict him. “In a way, it was the best thing that happened to [...]

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Mortgage-modification program questioned, protested

Protesting near the National Constitution Center, where a congressional panel yesterday tried to gauge the progress of homeowner-rescue programs, Aponte said his lender had agreed to modify his mortgage, then had withdrawn the offer.
“They said that without a job, how could I pay even that?” Aponte said. “They’re right, but it isn’t fair.”
That opinion was [...]

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Should I accept my loan modification offer or counter?

For the past few years I have helped thousands of people by teaching them to help themselves through my blogs, forums and emails. I really enjoy assisting my fellow Americans in a time of need and have found a great new career working from home.
Since becoming a full time consumer advocate and blogger in 2007, I have found that [...]

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Are homeowners getting REAL help or just the SAME old BS?

From a Countrywide/Bank Of America Mortgage Holder:
Since I’m 55 and have lost most of my retirement fund, and am facing age discrimination in the job market, I don’t feel like I will be able to retire in the US, and Mexico is cheap but too dangerous/corrupt. I’m thinking of selling everything soon and moving to [...]

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Loan Modifications Stalling the Foreclosure Recovery Effort?

By Moe Bedard
It’s getting to be rather old news indicating that notices of default have hit record highs. Most everyone is aware of the fact that we are in a housing crisis. However, few people claim that lenders offering loan modifications are to blame for elongating the housing crisis. President Obama has sponsored loan modification [...]

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U.S. regulator urges thrifts to halt foreclosures

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision urged its regulated institutions on Wednesday to halt home foreclosures until the government’s $50 billion plan is implemented.
The request comes one day after Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner unveiled a bank rescue package that includes a program aimed at reducing monthly payments for troubled homeowners.
A broader U.S. [...]

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The Federal Reserve Implements Loan Modification Program

The Federal Reserve’s Ben Bernake sent a letter to the Senate Banking Committee announcing a new loan modification program to help keep struggling homeowners in their homes. The program will be applied to whole owned mortgage assets that it aquired in the recent Fed assisted JPMorgan Chase’s purchase of Bear Stearns and support of insurance giant AIG.

The Bear Stearns portfolio is worth approximately $27 billion and it is not clear how much of the $27 billion is tied to residential mortgages. AIG assets include a $20 billion portfolio of mortgage backed securities (MBS) and a $27 billion portfolio that includes securities that are backed by mortgages.

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How To Get A Successful Loan Modification

What should you do? The first step is to analyze your financial situation,

1. What percentage of your gross income (your income before tax deductions) is now devoted to housing costs, meaning mortgage principal, interest, taxes and insurance — PITI.
2. How much could you pay each month if PITI was limited to 38 percent of your gross income?
3. How much could you pay each month if PITI was limited to 31 percent of your gross income? This is an important question because the FDIC has been using a 31-percent benchmark when modifying loans made by IndyMac, the lender taken over by the FDIC in 2008. The 31-percent standard may well spread to other programs.

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Waters Backs Bair and Turns Up the Loan Modification Heat in Washington

“And so here we are and we don’t have any systematic way to help homeowners to modify these loans,” Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said. “I’m not even going to cooperate with you anymore,” Waters said, turning to Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) whose tireless efforts she praised.
“I just want you to know as much as [...]

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Citi Mortgage Loan Modification for This Grateful Homeowner

Out of all the lenders and mortgage servicers out there, I would have to say that the most positive feedback and best results have come from Citi Mortgage / Citi Financial time and time again.
They really seem like they are reaching out and going beyond the typical lip service I preach about here daily.
I [...]

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The Woman Who May Lead the US Out of the Mortgage and Housing Crisis

As the head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or the FDIC, Sheila Bair plays a powerful role in Washington. Appointed in 2006 by President Bush, Bair is an attorney who is at the epicenter of the US banking crisis.

Bair grew up in Kansas where she received her undergraduate degree as well as her [...]

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Unexpected foreclosure help causing unexpected headaches

Local officials are getting their first whiff of a direct benefit from the federal bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – and getting a little lightheaded.
Congress buried about $4 billion in the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 specifically to assist state and local governments in addressing problems with abandoned or foreclosed homes. [...]

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FDIC to Sign Major Lease in Orange County

The Federal Deposit Corporation (FDIC) has a job to do and this job may be the biggest clean up effort by any government or non-government agency ever in the history of our country and quite possibly the world.
Their job is to clean up the toxic mortgages and assets left by failed banking institutions ceased by the the [...]

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Key to the Crisis: It’s the Housing Market, Stupid

“It’s the housing market, stupid.” That’s what an increasing number of policymakers and economists are saying as they push for widespread mortgage modifications as a way to address a root cause of the financial crisis. With more than 1.5 million houses in foreclosure (three times the normal rate), and about 3.5 million other homeowners behind [...]

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Why Wait? HSBC is Modifying Some Loans Before Clients Ask

HSBC Finance Corp. wanted a better mortgage modification mousetrap.At the beginning of the year, nearly a fifth of the Mettawa, Ill., lender’s real estate loan portfolio had been modified after becoming delinquent. Freezes on initial rate resets for another roughly $1.3 billion of adjustable-rate mortgages were due to lapse this year. And a bottom in [...]

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Frank and Waters Call For FDIC’s Bair to Lead Country’s Loan Workout Efforts

Barney Frank and Maxine Waters are calling on the FDIC’s Sheila Bair to take the loan workout reins and lead the charge to put the brakes on our nation’s foreclosure epidemic. In a letter to President Bush today, they wrote that they were “very impressed” with Bair’s recent work at the failed Indymac with her loan modification program [...]

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Broken Big Time

She scrambled to renegotiate her loan and got trapped in a red-tape nightmare. The bank would not talk to her because she was not yet late on her payments.
“I ended up renting it out, my income was going down,” Ms. Formariz said. “I tried to hang on to it because I thought I was going [...]

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Cook County Sheriff Takes Stand Against Predatory Renting

In an op-ed piece in the Chicago Sun-Times explaining his decision, Sheriff Tom Dart said that “too many times,” his deputies have arrived at foreclosed properties to find tenants who have indeed paid their rent. But the property owner hadn’t paid the mortgage, leading banks to foreclose on the property.
LoanWorkout.org has covered the new scam [...]

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US mortgage modifications level off, but may rise

Slower-than-expected growth in loan modifications may be tied to complex ownership of the loans that are collateral for bonds owned by investors with competing interests, analysts said.
Many bond contracts stipulate no more than 5 percent of a pool can be modified, forcing servicers to negotiate with investors to show a new loan leaves them better [...]

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Modifying some of those loans

AS THE Bush administration and Congress try to untangle the fallout from the defeat of the Wall Street bailout, foreclosures continue to climb, financial companies fail, and the middle class economic squeeze worsens by the day.
One significant action doesn’t need congressional approval and can make a big difference. Effective and wide-scale loan modification programs by [...]

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Unforgiven? Mortgage modifications skyrocket—but not principal reductions

Servicers tweaking loans, even though debt forgivenss more effective way of preventing defaults
Loan modifications for financially pressed homeowners have soared six-fold in the last year, though mortgage servicers are still making little use of the most effective approach to reducing borrowers’ delinquent payments.
Modifications rose to about 30,000 in August, from about 5,000 a year before, according [...]

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ANALYSIS OF SUBPRIME MORTGAGE SERVICING PERFORMANCE

Nearly one year ago, the State Foreclosure Prevention Working Group met with the 20
largest servicers of subprime mortgage loans to discuss opportunities to prevent
unnecessary foreclosures. Over the past year, the State Working Group, composed of
state attorneys general and state banking regulators, has collected data monthly from 13
of these 20 servicers and published two reports on [...]

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US mortgage modifications leveled off in August

NEW YORK, Oct 2 (Reuters) – U.S. mortgage servicing companies permanently eased terms on about 79,000 home loans in August, slightly less than in July, suggesting the practice aimed at preventing foreclosure may be leveling off, according to data published by an industry group on Thursday.

Servicing companies, which collect payments and distribute the money to [...]

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Bailout: Little help for homeowners

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The $700 billion bailout legislation now under consideration by Congress calls for the Treasury Secretary to implement a plan to stem foreclosures by working with servicers to modify loans.
But many housing experts question whether the bill will help struggling homeowners refinance into more affordable mortgages. They stress that the economy won’t [...]

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What about my mortgage?

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The Bush administration wants to help beleaguered financial institutions – and prevent the financial crisis from getting worse – by spending $700 billion to buy up troubled mortgage securities.
But many struggling homeowners are asking: “Where’s my bailout?”
Democratic lawmakers have taken up their battle and say they will include more help for [...]

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Senators Caught in Mortgage Fallout

When Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota wanted a mortgage for his beach house, he turned to a Washington insider. James A. Johnson, former head of Fannie Mae, the government mortgage giant, who then put the senator in touch with Angelo Mozilo, chief executive of the mortgage lender Countrywide Financial.
The ensuing telephone call between Mr. [...]

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Borrowers who negotiate loan terms with a mortgage broker in Spanish, must receive their loan documents in Spanish

Borrowers Who Negotiate Loan Terms with a Mortgage Broker in Spanish, Must Receive Their Loan Documents in Spanish
Hablas Espanol? Su casa es mi casa!
“Just sign right here on this mortgage and real estate contract. I know you cannot speak or read English, but that’s not a problem. Everything I [...]

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Disabled Vet From Marine Corps. Can’t Get Help From Countrywide

This is a sad reality of business. Yes, you taking a mortgage out on property is “business”. These homes are backed by contracts not feelings. You break that contract, then the big bad wolves (lenders) are going to come take your home.
Forget about you fighting in Iraq for freedom, justice and against terrorism. Forget that you are injured [...]

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Massive Loan Modification Campaign on the Way?

By Moe Bedard
The Treasury and the banks have seen the light and it looks like they finally realized that only an across the board approach would work even if this approach implies an indirect government interference – via moral suasion – with the “free market” process and an effective mortgage relief to the borrowers rather than a [...]

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Investors Who Hold Bonds Backed by Risky Home Loans Have Continued to Receive Their Monthly Interest Payments — Until Now.

Looks like investors are finally starting to feel some subprime pain.
Quoted from the New York Times:
For all the pain in the mortgage market, investors who hold bonds backed by risky home loans have continued to receive their monthly interest payments — until now.

Skip to next paragraph

Multimedia
Graphic
Slowdown

Collateralized debt obligations — made up of [...]

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Why Lenders & Servicers Are Not Cooperating to Modify Mortgages

America and homeowners need to understand the “facts” and the “reality” as to why our great country is in such a ridiculous housing and mortgage mess.
I’m so sick of hearing that homeowners are in homes they cannot afford. They over speculated. They bought way above their means. They can’t be helped. Rubbish! Bullshit!
WE ARE IN [...]

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House Bill Would Allow Bankruptcy Courts to Modify Mortgages

This Bill right here would stop foreclosure for hundreds of thousands of homeowners and save them from their toxic mortgages that are eating them alive.
Under loan modifications, the lender and loan-servicing company change the mortgage terms to make them more affordable to the borrower. This can include lower interest rates and forgiving a portion of the [...]

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A Rate Cut Will Not Help These Damned Loans

Let’s get one thing straight here. A rate cut by Mr. Ben Bernake and the glorious Federal Reserve will do nothing to ease the category 5 Hurricane of foreclosures that is engulfing homes and local economies across the US. A cut would be a confidence boost to settle panicked markets but it will provide little relief for struggling [...]

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FHA Secure Facts

Website are starting to pop up left and right as the next internet gold rush is on the way. With the announcement of the FHA Secure, struggling loan officers, lenders and webmaster rushed to register domain names and jump on the new lending band wagon. Hell, they have been starving for loans and many loan [...]

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Home Loan Failure in the US Will Turn Into a World Economic Crisis

We are in the midst of one the biggest business model failures in our nation’s history. The snake oil subprime business was great over the last few years and up until about 6 months ago, you could find this cure all medicine at about every corner in America. This snake oil can’t be found and production [...]

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Massive Loan Modifications Predicted to Help Solve the Foreclosure Crisis

I have been following the foreclosure crisis very carefully. It’s a full time job for me now. Researching, writing and developing websites for my various projects. I probably read up to 50 plus articles per day trying to find the latest news and also tips to help my blog readers avoid foreclosure.
All my research and [...]

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